More than one in ten people will need food aid next year

The UN and aid agencies appealed today for US$268 million to help feed 1.5 million people in Zimbabwe next year, as well as to address other urgent humanitarian needs.

More than one in ten Zimbabweans will need food assistance in the first half of the year, and one million children under-five are at risk of malnutrition, according to the Consolidated Appeal Process (CAP) launched in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare.

A third of rural Zimbabweans lack access to safe drinking water, and face the threat of water-borne disease such as cholera and typhoid, the appeal adds.

The humanitarian situation stems from the economic crisis of the early 2000s which left many industries including manufacturing, agriculture and tourism at near-collapse.

“The humanitarian situation has improved over the past couple of years,” said Alain Noudéhou, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Zimbabwe. “However challenges still exists such as food insecurity affecting a million people, waterborne disease outbreaks in parts of the country and mass deportations of thousands of Zimbabweans from neighbouring countries.”

The majority of the funding will be used for food aid, as well as helping people get better access to hygiene and sanitation. It will also help people displaced by natural disasters and years of economic hardship, and refugees fleeing conflicts and droughts in the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa.